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Volunteers Urgently Needed for Tripawds Foundation

Are you able and ready to volunteer a bit of your time to help the Tripawds Nation? The Tripawds Foundation is looking for great volunteers like you!

Here are two areas where we could really use help:

Volunteer Opportunity #1: The Tripawds Pals Helpline

Do you remember how scary and lonely it was like when your vet recommended a leg amputation for your best friend? We do, which is why the Tripawds Pals Helpline exists.

The Helpline provides emotional support for anyone facing a limb amputation for their cat or dog.

Volunteers are community members who offer emotional support both pre and post-amputation. They direct callers to vital information at tripawds.com and elsewhere that could help in their journey.

The Helpline needs two volunteers: one for a Saturday shift and one for Monday. You choose the hours.

It costs you nothing and you can do it from your couch!

All it takes is being a Tripawds community member with at least a few months of experience being a Tripawd parent.

Just answer your phone if a Helpline caller dials in, during whatever hours you can be available. You decide which.

If you can commit to a Saturday or Monday for at least three months, we’d love to have you join us.

Some weeks you might get a call, other times you won’t. It’s hard to say when you will get a caller, but we just need someone to commit to being available for at least three hours to help that one worried, scared Tripawd parent who calls in.

2 Responses to “Volunteers Urgently Needed for Tripawds Foundation”

A “PS” to my post above. You do NOT have ro be a computer geek to volunteer! There is a link the Admin Guy gave us to direct callers to the site. They can begin navigating the forums from that starting point.

Now, I have noooo idea how the paragraph AFTER my “signature” ended up looking like a “PS”! That paragraph should have come right after the first sentence in the fifth paragraph. I wanted ro clarify the error in positioning as it gave it too much emphasis standing on it’s own. None of these calls are “scary” or “intimidating”. They ARE a “cry for help” and this gives us an opportunity to do just that!

Having been a volunteer for the Tipawds Helpline since it’s inception, please don’t hesitate to “pm” (private message) and I will be glad to share my personal experiences.

No one can offer the kind of heartfelt support to others like those of us who have been through it. We’ve been through the shock of the hearing the diagnosis, through the emotional agony involved in making the decision to amputate. We’ve been through the ups and downs of recovery. We’ve been through the seemingly unbearable and never ending grief when our dogs and cats have transitioned.

We listen and then we listen some more. We let them know we DO understand. We let them know they are not alone!! We don’t give veterinary advice. We don’t offer opinions or judgements ever! We merely help them process their thoughts, again, by listening, and then by asking questions to help us understand how we can best support them based on their own individual circumstances and beliefs.

For me, this has been a way to “give back” and pay tribute to every beautiful Soul (animal beings and human beings) who are on this journey. The Tripawd Universe threw me a lifeline when my Happy Hannah and I made our first post in February 2013. From that point forward, I vowed I would give back! I also vowed I would continue ro help others as a way to honor my “forever happy” Happy Hannah.

Yes, the calls can be “tough”,so very tough on many levels. However, there is nothing more rewarding than knowing that the Soul on the other end of that phone call feels better after the call than they did before the call. They feel loved, they feel understood, they were heard and they have more clarity.

In my case, some of the calls have been dealing with the turmoil of making the decision to amputate, or the challenges of a rough recovery. But most of my calls have been someone rying to navigate through the gut wrenching heartbreak of grief.